Prosecutors say they’re worried about taking on cases that might attract President Donald Trump’s attention after Attorney General Bill Barr’s intervention to soften a prison sentencing recommendation for the president’s convicted pal Roger Stone. The New York Times reports that career prosecutors, who didn’t want to be named by the paper, said they were already wary of taking on cases that involve Trump’s friends or associates, and their worst fears have been realized in the Stone case. The prosecutors also reportedly said that they’re concerned Barr will abandon them in cases that are politically sensitive. “The leadership of the Justice Department has commandeered the sentencing in a politically sensitive criminal matter, reversing the position uniformly accepted and promoted by the career prosecutors,” said David Laufman, former chief of the Department of Justice’s counterintelligence section. All four career prosecutors who were handling the Stone case quit in protest after Barr’s intervention.
